Penguin Loves Musichttp://penguinlovesmusic.de
little penguin's guide to playing musicFri, 16 Nov 2018 04:40:23 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8iPeng 9.6: Big Change for the Big Screen!http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2018/09/30/ipeng-9-6-big-change-for-the-big-screen/
Sun, 30 Sep 2018 03:46:39 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2724Like every year during fall, Apple have presented their new devices and thus laid the foundation for changes to iPeng. Once again, that kept us busy to deliver the best design and functionality.

For the iPhone XS Max, the challenge was to adapt to the truly huge (6.5-inch!) screen. The Apple Watch Series 4, whose design Apple – by ist own words – has not only “evolved”, but “transformed”, also comes with a larger display and rounded corners, which made design adjustments necessary.

iPeng now also supports the following new features on the Apple Watch:

multicolored complications

more formats for complications

implementation of the curved corner complication design

The new version is now available as a free update in the App Store. Another update for iPeng UE will follow shortly.

It’s just “iPeng” again

One last note on the product name of iPeng, because there are news here as well: From now on you will find the app in the App Store under “iPeng” again, not under “iPeng 9”: Since iPeng Classic got removed from the App Store by Apple, we decided to return iPeng to it’s original product name since the distinction is no longer necessary.

iPeng 9’s Apple Watch App gets an update.

Use the Digital Crown to Change the Volume

While watchOS 1 apps are running on your iPhone, watchOS 2 and newer lets the app run directly on the watch.

The most immediate change you will notice after the update is that iPeng can now finally make use of the digital crown to change the player volume. This allows you to change the volume much faster than before by simply turning the crown. To illustrate this, the volume indicator is now symbolized by a (round) dial instead of a bar.

Use Complications to Quickly Launch the App from the Watch Face

Another new feature is Complications, which you can add to your watch face. Depending on the watch face and the type of complication you select, it will show an icon for the currently selected player and the player name or the current volume.

Tapping the complication directly launches the app.

Other Changes in the watchOS App

But the switch to the new watchOS versions also comes with some downsides: Apple no longer lets us bundle the original watchOS 1 app with iPeng, so iPeng 9.5 now requires your watch to run at least under watchOS 3.

Also, while performance on the new Apple Watch Series 3 is pretty good, the app can feel a bit slower on the original Apple Watch (“Series 0”). That is because the processor on this old watch is slow and the app can no longer use the resources of your iPhone.

Use the “Music, Walk With Me”-Plugin for QuickSwitch

One more feature seeing a change is “QuickSwitch” when selecting a player on the watch. So far, the feature allowed you to move your music (the current playlist) directly from one player to another. This now requires the “Music, Walk With Me”-plugin to be installed on your Logitech Media server and will no longer work with MySqueezebox.com. The reason is that the feature requires continuous communication with the server over several commands, which isn’t possible in a reliable and quick way on watchOS. The old app could do this by calling the main iPeng app on iOS, but since watchOS 2 this is no longer possible.

You can install the plugin simply from the “Settings->Plugins” section in your server’s web interface.

Overall, if you have one of the newer Apple Watch models, iPeng 9.5 will make iPeng on Apple Watch much more usable and useful, you get really quick actions and volume changes, we hope you will enjoy it!

And Finally: On Privacy

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last month or so, you will have been nagged with a lot of privacy announcements due to the new GDPR rules in Europe, and yes, we briefly need to talk about this, too.

First: We never used iPeng to collect any personal data from you, we never had any accounts, registrations or the like, and all data iPeng generates and uses is stored on your device and your iCloud account only.

The only exceptions are crash reports, which are fully anonymized and don’t contain data that allows us to identify you, your device or what you have been doing.

But since iPeng is a remote control app that works with a Squeezebox and can use online services, it does communicate as well.

MySqueezebox.com

If you use Logitech Media Server (LMS), most of iPeng’s communication will be directly with LMS, unless you use iPeng Playback, which will read remote streams if you play them

If you use MySqueezebox.com, however, your Squeezebox will be completely controlled by this service. This will be the case independent of whether you use iPeng or not, it’s how the Squeezebox works with MySqueezebox.com.

Obviously, Logitech can track what you are doing on your device, please refer to them if you want to learn more about how they handle privacy.

Making it Optional

If you want to stay completely private, the easiest way is not to use MySqueezebox.com but LMS instead and to disable MySqueezebox.com in LMS (unlike Logitech’s App iPeng never required you to use it). To make this easy and consistent for you, iPeng now also lets you completely disable MySqueezebox.com support. It’s configurable in “iPeng Settings”, and when you launch iPeng 9.5 the first time, it will ask you whether you want to use MySqueezebox.com or not.

We hope we have given you a comprehensible introduction to the topic, please read our Privacy Policy for further details on what iPeng does, what information it communicates and how, and how the whole Squeezebox system works with MySqueezebox.com.

]]>iPeng 9.4: iPhone X Supporthttp://penguinlovesmusic.de/2018/02/10/ipeng-9-4-iphone-x-support/
Sat, 10 Feb 2018 12:30:40 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2631 Today we’ve launched version 9.4 of both iPeng 9 and iPeng ue, and as a headline feature, this update brings you full support for Apple’s latest phone, the iPhone X.

With its new edge-to-edge screen, rounded corners and gesture control, it brings a few challenges to app migration from older phones, both from a design and usability point of view.

iPeng 9.4 takes this into account by presenting itself with some smaller changes to its look on iPhone X and by adapting to the different screen format.

For iPeng 9 and iPeng ue!

This update comes to iPeng 9 and iPeng ue at the same time. It’s the first iPeng version built for iOS 11, which results in some minor design changes, particularly on iPad; generally the look should now be a bit more consistent. Besides that the makeover includes some small improvements like new icons and bug fixes.

We are still working on a bigger redesign of iPeng that will modernize the look and feel of the app and in which we plan to design it even more around iPhone X and its new screen. So stay tuned!

Easier Playback Purchase

And for those who found it difficult to buy iPeng’s playback feature in the past, the purchase has become much easier: you can now select the feature directly from the App Store and will then be taken to iPeng which completes the transaction.

After nine years on the App Store, Apple has announced to remove iPeng Classic from the store by early December.

We are a little sad to inform you that Apple will remove our iPeng Classic app (for iPhone) from the App Store within the next weeks. Since the Classic app doesn’t work under iOS 11, and Apple doesn’t want any apps that only support older versions of the operating system on the store, the end of our first, classic iPhone app is now inevitably approaching. While we do of course expect this with a little melancholy – after all iPeng Classic was our first product on the App Store and also one of the first functioning iPhone remote control apps on the market ever –, we are more than happy about the lasting popularity of iPeng 9 and the smooth transition that most of you seem to experience with its latest update to iOS 11.

To those of you who have only recently purchased the Classic app or want to continue using the app with an older device: please make sure to keep your iCloud backups activated since this will possibly be the only remaining way to install or re-install the app in the future (we will try to make at least re-downloads from the App Store available, but there’s no guarantee that this will work)!
And to those of you who are currently planning to update to iPeng 9 but haven’t done it yet: if you want to use an Upgrade Bundle to update, you can only do so as long as the app is still available, the Upgrade Bundle for iPeng Classic for iPhone will be removed from the App Store together with the app.

We are, and have always been, striving to permanently improve our apps and to provide you with the best applicability and music listening experience possible and will continue to do so in the future. We would like to thank you, our customers, for your trust and enthusiasm that has carried us over the years and made iPeng to what it is now – one of the leading iPhone Remote apps with a top ten position on the App Store in many European countries.

So again, a warm thanks to all of you,
and as always: have fun with iPeng!

]]>

iPeng is Ready for iOS 11 – Continue to Use Your Squeezeboxes with iPhone and iPad.http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2017/09/19/ipeng-is-ready-for-ios-11/
Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:28:04 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2544Good news: We will keep the discount on iPeng 9 and iPeng ue open until Sunday, October 15th.

As you might have noticed, the discount we are giving on our current iPeng Apps on the occasion of the iOS 11 release has been extended and is still running. It was supposed to end on October 1st, but we will now leave it open until Sunday.

The update rates for Apple’s current operating system haven’t been as fast as in the last few years, so a lot of people only started using the new operating system later.

Also, there is an issue with upgrade bundles showing a wrong price (an App Store problem on Apple’s side) that confuses some people. So we decided to extend the offer to get on board the iPeng community at a discount.

While Apple prepared to roll out iOS 11 to your iPhones and iPads out there, we have been busy making sure your favorite music App is ready in time, too.

An Alternative for Users of the Logitech Apps

This was especially important to us as Logitech’s own Apps for Squeezeboxes and the UE Smart Radio will stop working under iOS 11. So, if you have been a user of these Apps until now, you will need an alternative.

Of course we hope that you will find iPeng to be your best option now! And to help you a bit with your decision making, both iPeng 9 and iPeng ue will sell at a discount until end of September. Please note that the App Store automatically disables the discounted Upgrade Bundles for users of iPeng Classic, you will get a similar discount due to the reduced price during this time.

Three iPeng Apps will be Fully Compatible with iOS 11

And while support for specific iOS 11 features will take a little longer, iPeng 9 and iPeng ue now work fine with the new system and iPeng Party will follow soon.

Since iOS 11 brings bigger changes than most updates before, we decided to update all Apps we still support. One of the first and foremost implications of the transition to iOS 11 is the discontinuation of support for 32-bit Apps, which means a lot of older Apps will no longer work. As a consequence this means that on new devices we will have to say goodbye to the old “iPeng Classic” Apps under iOS 11. iPeng Classic, with the original Apps launched 9 and 7 years ago for iPhone and iPad, has been deprecated ever since we released iPeng 7 (now called iPeng 9) four years ago. We left the Apps on the App Store to give users of old hardware an option, but they are no longer supported for new devices.

Changes to the Apps

All our other Apps will run with iOS 11, with different implications for the respective Apps, though.

iPeng 9

iPeng 9 is seeing the smallest changes of all of our Apps. It has always been a 64-bit App, so even oldest iPeng 7 versions will still run under iOS 11. The latest update was only a few weeks ago, so changes are limited to fixes of some smaller compatibility issues in the user interface.

iPeng ue

For iPeng ue we have taken the opportunity to step up its version to 9.0 as well, and with that it gains two of the features formerly lacking in the UE Smart Radio version of iPeng:

Lock Screen Widget. The widget allows you to control your Smart Radio directly from the lock screen of your iPhone or iPad and gives you faster access to critical controls.

Multitasking support on iPad. iPeng ue now can run in a split-screen window alongside other Apps. While this has already been introduced with iOS 10, it becomes more important under iOS 11, and it allows you to keep iPeng always open next to another App so that you can still control and see your music while e.g. reading on your iPad.

Both features work just like in iPeng 9, please read our announcements for iPeng 9.0 to 9.2 here, here and here for details.

iPeng Party

The most significant changes will come to iPeng Party.

This is the first time iPeng Party becomes a 64-bit App, and with the upgrade, we have included a lot of the more modern code from iPeng 9 into the App in order to have full compatibility with the latest versions of Logitech Media Server. As you will see, performance has improved significantly as well.

And while the general user interface of iPeng Party has stayed the same, it has also adopted a lot of the look&feel of iPeng 9. If you are also an iPeng 9 user, you will feel more at home in iPeng Party now.

We hope that with all these updates the transition to iOS 11 goes smoothly for you and that you continue to have fun with your Apple and Squeezebox devices and of course our Apps!

While he’s working on a big iPeng update with lots of new features and iOS 11 support for later this summer, he decided to give you some improvements already now so that you don’t get too overwhelmed with everything showing up at once. J

This is an interesting feature for those iPeng and Squeezebox users who have moved from Logitech Media Server to Roon or for Roon users looking for an iOS player App.

While Roon comes with Squeezebox player support so that you can use your Squeezebox players with a Roon server, this didn’t work very well with iPeng so far.

Now, with iPeng 9.3, we fully support Roon’s Squeezebox interface so that you can use your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch as a Roon player. This works with all functionality Roon supports for Squeezebox players, which includes most of Roon’s general functionality as well as synchronization between Squeezebox players (but currently not between Squeezeboxes and Roon players).

Using iPeng with Roon

You will also be able to start/pause playback or control the volume directly from iPeng, but due to the limitations of Roon’s Squeezebox emulation, this will not work from the lock screen widget or the Watch App (it does work from the control center/lock screen control, though).

iPeng also comes with some integration with the Roon App that allows you to switch directly from iPeng to Roon, and if you do that, you can also directly return from Roon to iPeng.

If you mix Roon and LMS servers, iPeng allows you to move players between the different music sources, and it will identify Roon as such in the server list.

If you use an iPhone or iPad as a dedicated player, you might want to use the “Preserve Connection” setting in iPeng ‘s settings that will keep iPeng waiting in the background for five minutes after you stop playback so that you can start music after your playlist has ended more easily.

Please note: for Roon support you need iPeng’s “Playback”-In-App-Purchase. Roon support only includes player functionality, you cannot browse your Roon library using iPeng.

Playback Synchronization Overhaul

We have completely rewritten the synchronization code in iPeng Playback and it should now perform much better considering several aspects:

it syncs much faster with other players;

Synchonization should be more stable when used with different player types (depends on the other players also keeping sync stable, which isn’t always the case with software players);

pausing/unpausing a group of synced players should have a much shorter delay, and sync should be immediately on unpause.

Use Music and Artist Information Plugin as Lyrics Provider

The “Music and Artist Information” plugin can now be used as a lyrics provider for iPeng’s Lyrics Screen Saver in addition to the SongInfo/Song Lyrics plugins supported before.

Since SongInfo/SongLyrics is no longer supported, we recommend to use Music and Artist Information for new setups, but you currently don’t need to switch for existing installations since both plugins currently use the same lyrics services.

And as usual, the update comes with a lot of smaller updates and bug fixes that we can’t list all in one article.

Have fun and a nice summer with iPeng!

]]>Spotifyhttp://penguinlovesmusic.de/2017/07/12/spotify/
Wed, 12 Jul 2017 11:59:58 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2489We’re getting a lot of questions from iPeng users right now about the future of Spotify in the Squeezebox environment.
As things stand, Spotify seems to be discontinuing Squeezebox support soon (this month) and is sending out emails about this.
There is, however, a pretty good workaround, at least if you use Logitech Media Server (version 7.7.x and newer, 7.9.1 recommended), the new “Spotty” plugin:http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?107615-Announce-Spotty-the-next-generation-Spotify-implementation

If you currently don’t run your own Logitech Media Server, you might consider using a Raspberry Pi for this, it will probably give you better performance for your Squeezebox system than MySqueezebox.com alone, consumes little power and there are ready-made distributions for Squeezebox available, like Max2Play or piCorePlayer.

]]>iPeng Upgrade Bundles – Your Migration Option for 64-bit- Compatibilityhttp://penguinlovesmusic.de/2017/06/17/ipeng-upgrade-bundles-your-migration-option-for-64-bit-compatibility/
Sat, 17 Jun 2017 02:53:17 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2479Please note: Under iOS 11, the App Store shows a wrong price. There seems to be some issue on the App Store side making our bundles show the full price for both Apps, even if you already have purchased one of the Apps in the bundle. The way upgrade bundles work is that you have a price for purchasing both Apps together, and whatever you already paid for one of the Apps in the bundle will be deducted from the current price. This is often a bit confusing, especially if there have been exchange rate or tax changes. But now the App Store doesn’t discount the old payment when showing the price at all, even when you click to purchase. The App Store actually charges the bundle correctly, meaning that after you confirm the purchase, it will inform you that the bundle is actually cheaper; but you have to take the risk to confirm the purchase (which is non-refundable!) first and hope you haven’t made a mistake like choosing the wrong bundle or wrong App Store account. We think this is not really acceptable, but we have no other way to give upgrade discounts on the App Store, and we can’t fix it (after all it’s Apple’s store).

If you are still using iPeng Classic on your recent iPhone or iPad with iOS 10, you will have noticed warning messages telling you that future iOS versions will no longer support the App. Apple will probably make this step with the release of iOS 11 this fall.

The solution for this problem is of course iPeng 9. Originally launched as “iPeng 7” three and a half years ago, iPeng 9 has been a 64-bit-App from day one and is seeing continued development and regular updates.

The reasons for making a new App back then instead of updating the old iPeng (Classic) Apps were both technical and commercial. Commercially it wasn’t feasible to do ongoing development without generating revenue from new App sales. And technically we wanted to combine the previously independent iPhone and iPad Apps into one to make maintenance easier, which had become possible because the original technical reasons for the separation had fallen away.

Since our new App launched with iPeng 7 in 2013, it has already seen lots of updates with the addition of features like the Apple Watch App, the lock screen widget, multitasking support and new functionality like QuickSwitch and Playlist and Favorites editing.

Now, if all of this hasn’t been reason enough for you to make the upgrade from iPeng Classic to iPeng 9 yet, we have a special offer for you today: a discounted upgrade path.

For existing users of iPeng Classic there are now two new upgrade bundles available on the App Store (one for iPeng Classic for iPad and one for the iPhone App), giving you a discount when upgrading to iPeng 9*). Just purchase the “bundle completion” on the App Store for the reduced price.

With it you can enjoy all the new features of iPeng 9 instead of listening to Apple’s annoying deprecation warnings and lean back as the release of iOS 11 approaches.

And to spare you the App Store search: here are the direct links to the bundles:

iPhone

iPad

As usual: have fun with iPeng!

*) The exact discount depends on how much you have paid for iPeng Classic. For someone buying the Apps right now this would mean a 22% discount but if you purchased the App longer ago when it was still selling at e.g. US$10 the discount will be bigger while for users who purchased the App at a lower price the discount will be smaller.

We understand that this isn’t ideal, especially in non-US markets where price tiers have been changed due to currency fluctuations. But this is how the App Store works, we can’t influence this mechanism.

]]>Building a Radio for iPenghttp://penguinlovesmusic.de/2017/02/26/building-a-radio-for-ipeng/
Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:34:08 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2413Today we present you an article that might strike some of you as a bit unusual here because it’s mostly not about software but about a cool piece of hardware.

It’s a Squeezebox built from a Tivoli Audio alarm speaker, and for the impatient ones among you, here are the key features and a picture:

Tivoli Speaker and case using the original speaker and 3W output;

WiFi;

runs on battery for a whole day (more than 12h);

rotary and push controller for volume and play/pause;

separate alarm clock;

fully Squeezebox compatible player using a Raspberry Pi zero and SqueezeLite;

very simple and power-efficient 5V design.

And since Coolio and I do software in the first place, the whole project has its own software as well, in this case our open-sourced solution to power the volume and play/pause control. It’s quite cool, too :), you can find it on GitHub at https://github.com/coolio107/SqueezeButtonPi-Daemon

]]>iPeng gets ready for iOS 10http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2016/09/23/ipeng-gets-ready-for-ios-10/
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:20:52 +0000http://penguinlovesmusic.de/?p=2345Apple just released iOS 10, and your favorite penguin hasn’t been lazy but made iPeng ready for the new operating system.

Unfortunately, iOS 10’s most prominent feature – Siri voice control support for apps – is not available for music apps yet. But since under iOS 10 widgets have become much more powerful, our iPeng 9.2 update includes some decisive improvements considering their usability.

What Has Changed?

First of all widgets have a new look in iOS 10, and being able to switch between a large and a small version of a widget – a feature iPeng’s widget has offered from the beginning – has now become a system feature. Widgets can also take up a bit more space on the screen, allowing us to improve their legibility.

But iOS 10 also makes widgets available in a lot more places and situations: in the search screen, for instance, and as a quick action on your home screen (if you force-touch the icon; iPhone 6s and newer only).

In both cases, the “compact” widget style is being used by default, so besides adapting the design, we decided to make the most important commands – play/pause, skip and volume – available directly from the compact window as well. This way you no longer need to start the app to start or stop playback, just do it right from the app’s icon.

Dynamic Type

Under iOS 10 the widget now also supports Dynamic Type, an iOS feature that lets you define the text size on your device. This helps to further improve the accessibility of the app.

Deep Integration with Apple’s Remote Control Commands

As another novelty iPeng now supports Apple’s remote control commands. If iPeng has been the last audio app you have used, you will be able to control it through the iOS control center (or remote control accessories such as docks).

Now generally this has been possible with iPeng for a long time, but with iOS 10 the support of the remote control interface has become much more powerful and reliable: It will now even launch iPeng’s playback feature if it has been stopped in the background, so if you just want to continue playing, here’s another case where you don’t even have to open the app at all.